Chapter 22 #4
Straight out in front of me seems wrong. Around myself is restricting. So, they flop like limp noodles as we lie together in silence and listen to the chirp of crickets and the swell of locusts.
“You seem tense.”
“I’m sorry,” I reply. “I don’t—I don’t know what to do with my hands?”
Her nose nuzzles the nape of my neck. “Has no one ever spooned you before?”
Whatever that means, I’m sure it’s not like the ridiculous imagery in my head. “Spooned me? Is that a real term? I feel like you’re making fun of me.”
“It is absolutely the term, but boy, I have missed how obtuse you are.” I glare at her over my shoulder to find her eyes alight with mischief. “I can give you more room.”
“No, this is nice. I’m bad at…spooning.”
She takes one of my arms and wraps it around my stomach, then covers it with her own. “Put your other hand under the pillow, supporting your head.” Her front is flush with my back and I’m immediately flooded with a sense of calm and protection. “I’m sorry no one has ever held you like this.”
The muscle memory of a similar situation comes back to me without warning.
“Oh, well, once. When I was little, I caught a bad virus of some kind. Theia was worried—the early stages of the Great Sickness looked a lot like the flu. They brought in antibiotics as fast as possible, but it took three days. The first day was bad, the second day worse, but the third day was almost unbearable. My fever made me delirious, I was coughing and throwing up, chronically dehydrated. Theia moved Hunter out of the cabin and put me under quarantine. But she stayed. She slept in a chair in my room, keeping vigil over me. I cried a lot, apologizing over and over for missing training and inconveniencing everyone.” Lucy threads her fingers through mine and squeezes them.
“In my delirium, I begged her not to send me away. I was always so worried she’d change her mind about me and send me to live with the other orphans, but I’d never said it out loud before.
I begged and begged, I promised I would get better and never get sick again. ”
“You were a kid. It’s not as if you meant to fall ill.”
“Yeah” I reply through a sigh. “Theia got into my bed and held me like this. She told me to sleep. That I never had to worry, because I was home. That the Order would always be my home.”
Lucy shifts closer and tightens her hold around me. It’s not easy for us to think gentle thoughts about Theia. The woman who tore our lives apart, tore us apart, but I still have the memories of when she held me together.
“I guess that was a lie,” I say to no one in particular. Maybe to myself. Maybe to the hurt child inside of me who pines for the mother Theia never could’ve been or wanted to be.
Lucy’s breath washes over my skin as I blink toward the window. It’s quite early, only three in the morning by my estimation, but eventually we will have to leave this bed and figure out our next steps. However, for a few glorious hours I want to be near this woman who is the totality of my heart.
“I can’t believe it took us almost dying for this to happen,” she whispers, and I hear the smile in her voice.
“You have always been partial to dramatics.”
“Right, because I’m the one who flew us through a roof the night we met.”
“Touché.”
A calm silence builds between us. It’s unlike on the train, when the quiet filled me with dread.
Lucy’s presence is a ward against the demons lurking in my brain.
Somewhere along the line we fall asleep tangled in one another, and awaken when the sun has fully risen in the sky.
I don’t think I’ve slept past sunrise in years, even in my solitary confinement.
But I’m lethargic with pleasure and the joy thrumming through my body keeps me weighed down.
Lucy stirs and stretches behind me, her skin caressing mine, and her lips find their way to the back of my neck. She kisses my neck, shoulders, and then her lips hover over the top of my back. I understand her hesitation, as I’m sure it’s rather unsightly. “Are you ready to tell me what happened?”
Her ask is gentle, trepidatious. I don’t move—I think it might be easier if I don’t have to look at her. “Theia imprisoned me in your bedroom in the Piccolo mansion, which she has turned into a headquarters. In place of execution for my treason, she tortured me off and on for the past six months.”
The soft kisses against my skin cease. A tension grows in Lucy’s body, and I feel it as if it were my own muscles clenching. “She…tortured you.”
“Yes.”
Lucy attempts to roll me onto my back, but I stubbornly remain on my side, facing away. “She did this to you. After…after everything you have done for her. Everything you sacrificed.”
“The torture was not that bad, honestly.”
“Taylor. She hurt you.”
“Well, yes, but I have a high tolerance for physical pain. She raised me to withstand such a thing. The whipping and beatings, they did not matter. Keeping me in your bedroom, that was the real torture. It was like being trapped in your coffin. That’s what—” I inhale three deep breaths as deliberately as I can. “That’s what broke me.”
This only tempers her rising anger. She finally coaxes me onto my back and stares down at me, her eyes traversing the length of my facial scar. “I can’t even imagine how hellish that was for you. Is that how you got this too?”
“Yes.”
Lucy leans down and places a gentle kiss on my lips. “I can’t undo the pain she caused you, but I won’t ever let her hurt you again.”
“Emotionally or physically?” I ask, deflecting. I’ve missed her admonishing looks. “What, are only you allowed gallows humor?”
She sighs and appears to give up on trying to delve further, trading her inquisition for more kissing.
Much preferable, in my limited experience.
Eventually, we make it out of bed and Lucy washes up, then prepares us a breakfast while I avail myself of the sparse amenities.
Freshly showered and teeth brushed, we eat waffles and share a pot of coffee at her tiny kitchen table.
It is shockingly domestic, and I briefly fantasize about this life.
Lucy and me, anywhere in the world she wants to live, sluggishly rising after a night of lovemaking and eating a home-cooked breakfast. Sunlight stretching across the floor and warming our toes, making Lucy’s red hair blaze like the fire in her heart.
“Is there anything I need to know before we meet this Roxana?” I ask, half turning away from the sink as I wash our dishes. “Aside from the fact that she nearly killed Mason and me?”
“I don’t know a lot about why Delilah wants this meeting.
I figured she sent me here to kill this lady, but she was insistent I scout and try to open a dialogue instead.
” Lucy finishes off her coffee and reaches to hand me the mug.
“We can’t talk on official comms, for the obvious I-am-supposed-to-be-dead reason, but she said she was on her way last night before I found you in the hallway. ”
“Delilah is here?” I turn off the faucet and wipe my hands on a nearby towel. “Lucy, what is going on?”
Lucy sighs, a precursor to an unburdening of truths I hope I’m prepared for.
“I’m not sure. Delilah has, uncharacteristically, held a lot of information from me about this.
But I know she’s been in constant contact with Theia’s other cabinet members, especially Councilor Wolfshield.
It’s been a lot of hush-hush prep and secret conversations.
They’re either staging a coup or throwing a surprise party. ”
So much for my idyllic fantasizing. Right when I think I’m on the cusp of finally having peace, a little fig tree of my own to sit beneath, the prospect of more war breathes down the back of my neck.
“I fought an entire war to win us this democracy. Whatever issues Delilah has with Theia’s presidency, I can’t see how more violence is the answer.
You said it yourself—if the question is violence, the answer is not violence. And Theia will not go down quietly.”
“We’ll see,” Lucy says darkly. “Look, there is a lot to talk about, but none of this even gets as far as talking if she can’t get Roxana on board.”
Lucy stands and I move quickly to intercept her before she can get ready to leave. I encircle her wrist and force her gaze to me. “I trust you. More than I trust anyone else. If you think Theia needs to be removed from power, then I will follow you.”
“I don’t want her removed from power.” She slides on a pair of pilot’s sunglasses and plunks a pair of UR-issued olive-green-framed sunglasses into my palm. “I want her to die, and I’m going to kill her.”